Battling Zika: Southern Research expert on Bio Report podcast

“To borrow a line from Jurassic Park, life finds a way.” – Jim Pannucci, Ph.D., senior director of Infectious Disease Research at Southern Research.

Pannucci appeared on the Bio Report podcast with Daniel Levine to discuss his new role with the organization and the battle to find a vaccine therapeutic for Zika and other diseases.

In the conversation, Pannucci spoke about the way infectious disease researchers approach an outbreak. He also connected the spread of the Zika virus, and other diseases that had once been considered tropical diseases, to global climate change, the evolution of mosquito species, and increased rates of travel among humans.

“Due to environmental changes, and species changes, and changes in the mosquitoes themselves, viruses are able to get places that they certainly have not been before.

And, the world is a lot smaller place than it used to be, so people are traveling more often — in and out of endemic areas — and with this come an increased risk of those travelers bringing them [diseases] back.”

Listen to the full podcast to learn more about Southern Research and how the organization contributing to the global effort to find a vaccine or therapeutic cure for this disease.